The Military’s Culture of Sexual Violence

By Margaret Carlson -
May 21, 2013

I have a suggestion about how to help
instantly reduce sexual assaults in the military. Round up those
in charge of handling sexual-assault cases.

What fertile ground. In the space of two weeks this month,
two of the top officers in charge of preventing sexual assaults
were accused in sexual assaults. Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey
Krusinski, the officer in charge of the Air Force program, was
arrested in a Washington suburb after he grabbed a woman in a
parking lot. An officer in the Sexual Harassment/Assault
Response and Prevention unit at Fort Hood in Texas, meanwhile,
is under investigation for abusive sexual conduct.

Sexual violence in the military is so pervasive, even some
of those who have been charged with rooting it out are
themselves violent. The military just can’t seem to curb the
epidemic on its own. It’s more important to pretend nothing has
happened when a complaint is lodged; many are never relayed to
military criminal authorities, while others are swept under the
rug. It’s the victim’s fault -- for upsetting camaraderie and
esprit de corps. Get her (or him: the Pentagon estimates that 54
percent of victims are men) to be quiet or charge the complainer
with conduct unbecoming an officer or insubordination.

Dangerous Paths

It’s no wonder some women in uniform try not to drink too
much -- not alcohol, but anything -- at night. As one told
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the most dangerous place on base is
often the secluded path to the latrines, where many assaults
take place.

Last year, the Pentagon received 3,374 reports of sexual
assault, according to its Sexual Assault Prevention and Response
Office. (The actual number of assaults is probably closer to
26,000, the office says.) Of those 3,374, almost 1,000 were
deemed baseless or outside the military’s jurisdiction, and
several hundred were dropped by commanders as unfounded or for
other reasons.

It’s true, as the military is fond of saying, that the
great majority of military officers are law-abiding. But when a
fellow service member is accused, the law-abiding tend to side
with the accused. Reporting a rape is never easy, but it’s much
harder when the perpetrator is of higher rank than the victim
(50 percent of the time) and when the perpetrator is in the
victim’s chain of command (23 percent of the time). Join the
military, where you may be more prone to sexual attack and you
don’t even get the protections, however flawed, you would get at
your local police precinct, because the brass close ranks.

There have been attempts to fix pieces of the problem, such
as the indignity of a recruit having to salute the man who
attacked her while her complaint is being investigated. In 2011
the Pentagon instituted an expedited transfer policy -- but
there’s no deadline on providing a move, and it doesn’t track
how long a move takes. Victims’ groups say more than 60 percent
of victims face continued contact and retaliation from their
attackers.

Meanwhile, members of Congress have dozens of reports that
superiors are more interested in finding reasons to intimidate
the victim than in helping her get out of the line of fire. In
one case, a nurse couldn’t get out of her unit after being raped
by a fellow officer. She even had to train with him. Her command
found excuses not to honor her transfer request until
Representative Niki Tsongas intervened.

Even the big boss, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, couldn’t
fix one problem: the ability of commanding officers to overturn
jury verdicts with no explanation whatsoever. After a general
overturned a sexual-assault conviction of an airman at Aviano
Air Base in Italy, Hagel pledged that no such thing would ever
happen again. He found out he didn’t have such authority.

Dangerous Predators

Violence and cover-up are part of the military’s culture.
If the numbers are right, there are 26,000 estimated assaults
but only a minuscule fraction are prosecuted. That means there
are a lot of dangerous predators at large.

Gillibrand introduced legislation last week that would
essentially remove commanders from the legal process. If passed,
complaints would have to go to a parallel system of military
prosecutors outside the command structure. No more commanders
overturning guilty verdicts.

The bill has 15 co-sponsors, but it may not be enough.
True, victims are no longer so afraid to come forward, and top
military officers acknowledge that sexual assault is an
epidemic. But change won’t come easily. At a news conference
last week, Senator Susan Collins spoke about her support of
Gillibrand’s bill. As she noted, her remarks were almost
identical to those she’d given almost a decade earlier. Sadly,
they were still topical.

This bill, though laudable, doesn’t do anything to reduce
the violence itself -- just the terrible injustice that happens
afterward. Women still shouldn’t walk to the latrines alone.

(Margaret Carlson is a Bloomberg View columnist. The
opinions expressed are her own.)